Heavy metals (Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb and Zn) found in textile wastewater are removed by a combination of adsorption using volcanic rock as adsorbent, sulfide precipitation and phytoremediation techniques. The integrated system for metal removal combining anaerobic bioreactor as main treatment step and a polishing step composed by algae, duckweed and water hyacinth ponds for heavy metal removal from industrial wastewater. The maximum of the metal removal was achieved in the bioreactor where metal sulphide was the major removal mechanism. The integrated system has revealed to be a promising and low cost alternative system for heavy metal removal from wastewater especially for developing countries.

Flooding in urbanized areas has become a very important issue around the world. The level of service (or performance) of urban drainage systems (UDS) degrades in time for a number of reasons. In order to maintain an acceptable performance of UDS, early rehabilitation plans must be developed and implemented. In developing countries the situation is serious, little investment is done and there are smaller funds each year for rehabilitation. The allocation of such funds must be “optimal” in providing value for money. However this task is not easy to achieve due to the multicriteria nature of the rehabilitation process, taking into account technical, environmental and social interests. Most of the time these are conflicting, which make it a highly demanding task.
The present book introduce a framework to deal with multicriteria decision making for the rehabilitation of urban drainage systems, and focuses on several aspects such as the improvement of the performance of the multicriteria optimization through the inclusion of new features in the algorithms and the proper selection of performance criteria. The use of Genetic Algorithms, parallelization and application in countries like Brazil, Colombia y Venezuela are treated in this book.

In the last few decades, the consequences of floods and flash floods in many parts of the world have been devastating. One way of improving flood management practice is to invest in data collection and modelling activities which enable an understanding of the functioning of a system and the selection of optimal mitigation measures. A Digital Terrain Model (DTM) provides the most essential information for flood manager. Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) surveys which enable the capture of spot heights at a spacing of 0.5m to 5m with a horizontal accuracy of 0.3m and a vertical accuracy of 0.15m can be used to develop high accuracy DTM but it need careful processing before it can be used for any application.
The research presents the augmentation of an existing Progressive Morphological filtering algorithm for processing raw LiDAR data to support a 1D/2D urban flood modelling framework. The key characteristics of this improved algorithm are: (1) the ability to deal with different kinds of buildings; (2) the ability to detect elevated road/rail lines and represent them in accordance to the reality; (3) the ability to deal with bridges and riverbanks; and (4) the ability to recover curbs and the use of appropriated roughness coefficient of Manning’s value to represent close-to-earth vegetation (e.g. grass and small bush).

This thesis presents the development a generic morphological model for both structured and unstructured grid and the extension to a biogeomorphological model.
For the morphological model, numerical algorithms are adjusted to adapt unstructured grid and are validated against analytical solutions and flume experiments. For the bio-geomorphological extension, relevant ecological processes are coupled with morphodynamic processes at various scales and are validated against the field data in Lake Veluwe. Capability of the model has been explored for applications of two salt marsh restoration cases in United States and the large scale morphodynamics of shoreface connected radial sand ridges located in South-east China Sea.
Validations and applications show that this modelling platform is capable to be a multidiscipline research tool for morphologists and ecologists / biologists.

The damages caused by floods remain an issue in the Chi River Basin, Thailand. Therefore, an integrated flood management framework needs to be developed to minimize the negative effects of floods of different magnitude. In response, a hydrological model (SWAT) and a hydraulic (1D/2D SOBEK) model were integrated to simulate floods in detailed way and to analyse the current system. The developed modelling framework enabled to analyse the impacts of different structural and non-structural measures based on economic and technical efficiency criteria. An optimum combination of aforesaid measures was then chosen since it could considerably reduce flood extent and its damage. Additionally, the study illustrates the effects of land use changes on floods, which indicated little or no significant potential impact on flood regime at river basin level, but rather at sub-basin scale. This finding is important for a better understanding of the scale and direction of impacts of future developments.

This dissertation presents a potential way forward for adaptation to climate change, termed the resilience approach. This approach takes a dynamic perspective on adaptive processes and the effects of these processes at/across different spatio-temporal scales. Experience is provided with four methods that can be used to apply the resilience approach: Adaptive Policy Making, Real-In-Options, Adaptation Tipping Points and - Adaptation Mainstreaming Opportunities. This dissertation discusses the concept, procedure and benefits/limitations of each method, examining its usefulness for informing investment decisions for flood risk management. It also gives specific recommendations on which method to use under what circumstances.

Water utilities in developing countries are struggling to provide customers with a reliable level of service due to their peculiar water distribution characteristics including poorly zoned networks with irregular supply operating under restricted budgets. These unique conditions demand unique tools and methods for water loss control. Water loss management: Tools and Methods for Developing Countries provide a decision support toolbox (appropriate tools and methodologies) for assessing, quantifying, prioritising strategies and improving water distribution efficiency in the developing countries. It promotes good stewardship of water resources and sustainable delivery of water supply services in urban water distribution systems.

Floods are one of the most common and widely distributed natural risks to life and property worldwide. An important part of modern flood risk management is to evaluate vulnerability to floods. This evaluation can be done only by using a parametric approach. Worldwide there is a need to enhance our understanding of vulnerability and to also develop methodologies and tools to assess vulnerability. One of the most important goals of assessing flood vulnerability is to create a readily understandable link between the theoretical concepts of flood vulnerability and the day-to-day decision-making process and to encapsulate this link in an easily accessible tool.

The deviation of bacteria transport and deposition patterns on grains in porous media from theory has resulted in the inability to accurately predict transport distances in aquifers, with consequences of polluting drinking water sources (springs, boreholes and wells). Due to the importance of Escherichia coli (E. coli) as an indicator of faecal contamination of drinking water supplies, this thesis research focused on their transport in saturated porous media. The objectives were to (i) study inter-strain and intra-strain attachment variability among multiple E. coli strains, (ii) characterize the distribution of sticking efficiencies within cell populations (iii) develop a methodology to measure minimum values of sticking efficiencies, and (iv) to assess the contribution of various cell properties on bacterial attachment to quartz grains. Most of this research was carried out under laboratory conditions (e.g. column and batch experiments), but a part of this work focused on the transport characteristics of E. coli strains isolated at the termination point of groundwater flow lines (springs) in Kampala, Uganda. The underlying hypothesis was that transport by a group of E. coli strains could possibly be characterized by a similar set of transport parameters.
Transport of E. coli strains isolated from different sources of the environment was studied using saturated quartz columns. Short (7 cm) and long (1.5 - 25 m) columns were used to investigate inter-strain attachment variations among E. coli strains, distributions in attachment efficiency within E. coli strains and to develop a methodology to measure the minimum sticking efficiency. Furthermore, long column experiments were applied in order to be able to measure low sticking efficiency values. Prior to the experiments E. coli strains were cultured and their phenotypic characteristics and selected genes encoding structures at the outer membrane were measured to investigate their effects on transport/attachment.
The results indicated that none of the studied cell characteristics significantly influenced E. coli attachment on sedimentary quartz grains; however, cell motility and antigen-43 expression promoted attachment to quartz grains over relatively short transport distances. For spring E. coli isolates from Kampala, a substantial percentage belonged to the same serotype (E. coli O21:H7). Therefore, we concluded that strains possessing this particular serotype may possess certain characteristics that promote their selective transport through the aquifers in the Kampala area in Uganda and might have determined an overall transport homogeneity observed for this particular group of E. coli isolates. With the exception of spring E. coli isolates which showed overall inter-strain transport homogeneity, results indicated that intra-strain and inter-strain attachment heterogeneities existed within and among the various E. coli strains, respectively.
Environmentally relevant low values of sticking efficiencies were measured over long transport distances and thus demonstrated the importance of the use of long columns for this type of research. The measured low values of sticking efficiency indicated that, for bacterial populations leaked into groundwater environments, sub-populations may possess non-attaching characteristics and therefore increase their chances of being transported over considerable distances, that might be underestimated using common drinking water protection guidelines. Intra-strain attachment variability resulted in a power-law distribution between fraction of cells and their sticking efficiencies. Minimum sticking efficiency was extrapolated from the power-law distribution. The minimum sticking efficiency is defined as the sticking efficiency belonging to a bacteria fraction of 0.001% of initial bacteria mass flowing into a column, after removal of 99.999% (5 log reduction) of the original bacteria mass has taken place. Values extrapolated were lower than those measured from experiments; the low values make the minimum sticking efficiency a valuable tool in delineating well-head protection areas in real-world cases.
Future research should focus on cell surface structures known to be involved in initial attachment to host tissues and/or abiotic surfaces. In addition, we advocate to carry out field bacteria transport experiments instead of laboratory experiments, since interpreting the results of the latter is limited by transport dependent scale issues.

The intensive uses of limited water resources, the growing population rates and the various increasing human activities put high and continuous stresses on these resources. Major problems affecting the water quality of rivers, streams and lakes may arise from inadequately treated sewage, poor land use practices, inadequate controls on the discharges of industrial waste waters, uncontrolled poor agricultural practices, excessive use of fertilizers, and a lack of integrated watershed management. This study explores the impact of these pollution problems and the water quality degradation of Irrigated agricultural watersheds When the watersheds have a complex physical basis of interacting water bodies such as canals, drains and coastal lagoons as in the case of irrigated watersheds in coastal river Deltas, and when these environments are ‘data scarce environments’, the problems of managing water quality becomes more obvious and the need for reliable solutions becomes an urgent requirement.
This study focused on the management of surface water quality problems in such watersheds and the importance of taking into consideration all the watershed components and the effects of pollution from the upstream canals on the downstream coastal lakes. In this study a generic framework for a (Water Quality Management Information System) is developed depending on the integration of physically based hydrodynamic and water quality models with GIS capabilities and the spatial and temporal capabilities of remote sensing in water quality modeling. The application is developed and tested for the Edko drainage catchment and shallow lake system in the western part of the Nile Delta, Egypt. The developed framework includes a hierarchy of modeling tools: a 1D-2D basic hydrodynamic model for a combined shallow lake-drainage system, a detailed 2D hydrodynamic model of the shallow lake, and a 2D water quality and eutrophication screening models for the lake system. The basic water quality model for the lake system simulates the main water quality parameters including the oxygen compounds, nutrients compounds, temperature, salinity and the total suspended matter (TSM). The complexity of the physical and ecological properties of the lake system implied the use of different methodologies for models calibration using remote sensing. The combination of remote sensing with mathematical modelling, for the calibration and verification of TSM and chlorophyll-concentrations in the shallow lake system showed reliable and successful results.

The study presented in this manuscript investigates the patterns that describe reliability of water distribution networks focusing to the node connectivity, energy balance, and economics of construction, operation and maintenance. A number of measures to evaluate the network resilience has been developed and assessed to arrive at more accurate diagnostics of regular and irregular demand scenarios. These measures have been proposed as a part of the methodology for snap-shot assessment of network reliability based on its configuration and hydraulic performance.
Practical outcome of the research is the decision support tool for reliability-based design of water distribution networks. This computer package named NEDRA (NEtwork Design and Reliability Assessment) consists of the modules for network generation, filtering, initialisation, optimisation, diagnostics and cost calculation, which can be used for sensitivity analyses of single network layout or assessments of multiple layouts.
The study concludes that none of the analysed aspects develops clear singular patterns. Nevertheless, the proposed network buffer index (NBI) and the hydraulic reliability diagram (HRD) as visual representation of the network resilience give sufficient snap-shot pointing the composition of the index value, and displaying possible weak points in the network that can be hidden behind the averaged values of various reliability measures.

Natural organic matter (NOM) generally influences water treatment processes such as coagulation, oxidation, adsorption, and membrane filtration. NOM contributes colour, taste and odour in drinking water, fouls membranes, serves as a precursor for disinfection by-products, increases the exhaustion and usage rate of activated carbon and may promote microbial growth in water distribution networks.
High performance size exclusion chromatography and fluorescence excitation-emission matrices were used to characterize NOM relatively quickly and with minimal sample preparation. These and other tools were used to improve our understanding of NOM character and behaviour during drinking water treatment. The study demonstrates the potential of multiple NOM characterization tools for the selection, operation and monitoring of water treatment processes.

Traditionally, wetlands were considered separately from river basin systems. However, nowadays an integrated approach is becoming common practice in wetland-riverine watershed analysis and management. Such overall wetland management approach implies not only an adequate representation of relevant bio-physical parameters, but also of socio-political and economic indicators, where stakeholders can provide crucial feedback. At several stages in the research, specific approaches were developed to deal with the typical problem of missing data. Using a cascade of quantitative models in combination with qualitative expert knowledge elicitation, a decision support framework is developed for selecting suitable management options for wetland-river systems in Ecuador.

In this research a considerable amount of scientific evidence had been collected which leads to the conclusion that the urban wastewater components should be designed as one integrated system, if the protection of the receiving waters is to be achieved cost-effectively. Even more, there is a need to optimize the design and operation of the sewerage network and wastewater treatment plant (WwTP) considering the dynamic interactions between them and the receiving waters. This book introduces a method named Model Based Design and Control (MoDeCo) for the optimum design and control of urban wastewater components. The book presents a detailed description of the integration of modelling tools for the sewer, the wastewater treatment plants and the rivers. The complex modelling structure used for the integrated model challenge previous applications of integrated modelling approaches presented in scientific literature. The combination of modelling tools and multi-objective evolutionary algorithms demonstrated in this book represent an excellent tool for designers and managers of urban wastewater infrastructure. This book also presents two alternatives to solve the computing demand of the optimization of integrated systems in practical applications: the use of surrogate modelling tools and the use of cloud computer infrastructure for parallel computing.

The morphology of tidal basins includes a wide range of features developing along different spatial and temporal scales. Examples are shoals, channels, banks, dunes and ripples. Coastal engineers use their engineering tools to answer questions on the processes governing the short term (< decades) development of these morphological features. Geologists apply their conceptual models and reconstruction methods to answer questions related to a much longer time scale (> centuries). This two-sided approach has left us with limited understanding of processes occurring on intermediate scales (> decades and < centuries), whereas the morphodynamics of these intermediate scales are of special concern to sustainable coastal zone management.
This study is part of a collective effort to bridge the aforementioned gap by extending the use of coastal engineering tools (process-based models) to geological time scales to provide more understanding of the physical processes governing the long-term morphodynamic behavior of tidal basins. A fundamental question addressed is whether or not process-based models can reproduce trustworthy long-term developments. To answer this question the Dutch Waddenzee is chosen as a reference case.
This study suggests that the question has a positive answer. By comparing model results with measured developments in the Waddenzee, this study shows that a process-based model can reproduce channel-shoal patterns and their long-term development qualitatively well. Modeled parameters such as area, volume and height of the inter-tidal flats obey the databased equilibrium equations. This study also demonstrates the models' ability to qualitatively assess the impact of large scale human intervention in a tidal basin. For example, the model is able to reproduce the change in tidal transport regime and the ensuing morphodynamic changes due to an extreme impact such as the closure of the Zuiderzee.
Although the highly schematized simulations produced qualitatively good results, they also revealed the need for a better process description. As the first step to improve model performance a methodology was developed to account for sediment composition and distribution in the bed. In the next step different methodologies to schematize wave action for long-term morphological simulations were investigated. investigated the wave climate. Model results show that the chronology of wave conditions and the wave schematization approach have a limited effect. The outcome of long-term morphodynamic simulations with different wave and tidal conditions are in good agreement with conceptual models. For the reference case, model results revealed that the morphological impact of wind waves is not only important outside the inlet and at the ebb-tidal delta, but also within the tidal basin. A final conclusion is that adding methodologies for bed composition and wave schematization to the model of the Waddenzee area improved the hindcasting simulations qualitatively.